THE LATE REV. ARTHUR TRIGGS. - The Gospel Magazine

The Gospel Magazine.
371
~rott~tant
lStacon.
THE gOSPEL IN BRITTANY.
BRITTANY has furnished many themes for 'authors and poets, who have
written tales and romances, and have dwelt on the antiquities of the
country and superstitions of its inhabitants. But no subject can
afford such pleasure and satisfaction to the Lord's people as the story
of what God has done by His Word and the preaching of the Gospel in
that country.
As Brittany is our nearest foreign missionary field, so is it one of the
darkest; and yet, at the same time, one that gives the greatest encouragement
and promise of blessing.
Some forty years ago there was a little boy whose grandfather had
filled an office in the Financial Department of the Government of
Napoleon I., but losing all his property in the Revolution, the boy's
father was a poor man, and a sabot-maker, living in a little village in
the Cotes-du-Nord.
This boy was being trained for the Romish Priesthood; and was going
to the Cure's house for his Latin lessons.
One day, on his return home, his companions told him there was a
Protestant man inside, and he avoided his cottage till the man had gone
away.
On another occasion, the same thing happened; and this time, the
boy, hearing a voice, listened to wha.t he was reading, and when the man
came out, he asked the name of the book. The man told him it was
the Bible. It was, of course, a French Bible, for at that time, there was
no Bible to be had in the Breton language. The boy asked where he
could get a copy, and the man promised to bring him one.. It was well
that he kept his promisf>, for that Bible led to the conversion, first of his
mother, and afterwards of tlle boy; but not' of the father till some
yea-rs later.
'
The boy at once gave up going to the priest for his lessons, and walked
to an.d from his village many miles to the nearest to,wn every week.
Pasteur William Monod, hearing of the boy's perseverance, arranged
for h~m to go to Paris, and there, in the College of the Reformed
Church, he completed his education, and returned with his literary
~, and legal degrees, to preach the gospel in his native Village.
This was the beginning of the present work,~ which is called, 1.' The
Breton Evangelical Mission." But though so named, it is not a
" mission" in the proper sense of the word, for no hUinan being ever
planned or organized the work, nor sent out workers to engage in it,
" It is the Lord's doingiand it is· marvellous in our eyes."
The Lord it is who began His work of grace in the heart of that boy
and carried it on till he became, in the person of Pasteur Lecoat, the
Apostle of Brittany. .'
,It. is tile Lord who qualified His servant to become the translator of
the Bible into the Breton language.
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